Does anyone know if cooking is sufficient to destroy enough of the Shiga Toxin produced by E. Coli O157:H7? I was under the impression that it often (always?) was not -- that it was safer than non-cooked by a wide margin but that while cooking the meat well could kill the E. Coli O157:H7 itself that enough Shiga Toxin would still persist that it could have the potential to cause problems. BTW, these are a type of rod bacteria which produce blood diarrhea and more. I can see that at least part of this in relation to larger facilities is still under study: http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=414241 but was wondering about data more consistent with a home setting. These are some of the ferret studies which may be of interest: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15583337 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11865409 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11504237 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6358164 Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 6060]
